now I lay(with everywhere around) [ past Sedgekit]

[Whiskers]

Name: now I lay(with everywhere around): The short sweet life of Sedgekit
Characters: Gingerclaw and Sedgekit
Rating: PG
Genre: Past Fic
Author's Note: Okay, so I'm going to post another disclaimer because I've never felt more unsure about a fic's quality before. I tried out something kinda new with the style, attempting to imitate a child's voice and how they would talk. Also, I lost this ENTIRE FIC and had to start over from scratch. That doesn't actually matter...it does, however, make me want to post it more, so I can know all this pain has been worth...something. If anything, it was a good experiment and I enjoyed looking at old warrior Gingerstar. Uh. Hopefully you won't be like "wth I can't even reaaad this" and you'll find some enjoyment out of it too. I seriously just don't even know.

Oh and some more back story: I got this idea after reading my e.e cummings poetry book and coming across this poem , which I was already familiar with and loved dearly. Originally this had been back in early December, and I was trying to reconnect with my characters and with my own writing style, so uh...I decided to attempt a fanfiction and Sedgekit came to mind. AND WITH THAT ridiculously long author's note, you can read the fic now. LUCKY YOU.





Prologue: "...and with a single strike of a match, all was bright, warm and good."

The first time I am in the world I am blind so it is dark. That is the only same. The rest is all different. The silence is now lost away in voices of things and thoughts of me. The warmth is gone too instead there’s cold all around especially in my ears and toes. I don’t like it it’s too different and I want to go back to home now, please, thank you.

The first time I am in the world, I hear Mother’s voice. “Is it over?” she says with too much breath. Another cat who I don’t know right away tells her, yes, it’s over. There is only one.

I am alone. Nothing beside me, no more warm bodies I remember. Underneath me, there is something squishy, soft, but cold (too much cold)—Other Cat tells someone to go get more moss for the bedding, and I think, this is moss. But moss isn’t mewling like I’m mewling and it smells funny, not like Mother. I’m all alone. But. Didn’t I have brothers and sisters?

“Take the bodies out of here,” Other Cat orders.

I am so alone. The cold gets so much colder, my head spins. I mewl weakly and then it dies in my throat so quickly I know something is wrong with me. Cold, cold, cold, oh I don’t like this place that I’m in. Why am I here? I don’t belong here. This world is too cold and too noisy for me.

Then Mother is with me, so close, and she is kissing me desperately as Other Cat encourages her to, saying yes, yes, yes, look, he is breathing again! “Good job, Gingerclaw,” Other Cat says. Mother, I mewl again and Mother sighs, wraps me up in something wonderfully warm and the same and suddenly maybe actually I was wrong and I do belong. Here.

Hello, world. I’m Sedgekit. Nice to meet you. Thank you for letting me stay.







Mother always scowls. It is what they call a birth defect, I think, and it’s the first thing I ever see when I crack open my eyes for the first time—Mother, look! Lights! The sun! Colors, oh Mother, colors!—and it’s still the best thing ever, even compared to all the new things. Mother doesn’t know how pretty she can be, even if her face is all scrunched up annoyed or something, all light locked in her eyes no matter how hard she scowls at me. And her fur! I would give anything to be like Mother, have Mother’s red fur instead of dumb old brown like mud or trees or dirt. I want swirling red and orange. I want to be Gingerclaw, not Sedgekit.

I like how it’s always me and Mother and sometimes Other cat, in just our corner of the world. There are other cats, too, all smelling yummy like milk with big eyes and really soft voices that tell me oh you’re so cute. But they stay in one corner always, sleeping and eating and playing with little kits and we stay in the opposite, because Mother says so. Sometimes, though, cats come to our corner and make Mother angry and sad and, Other Cat tells me, exhausted. Mother manages to chase them all away though, no matter how she is exhausted because she knows it’s just our corner for just us.

There’s one cat though. Cat who never leaves. She comes all the time no matter what, upsetting Mother bad. Sometimes she sleeps by our corner and sometimes she scowls so hard and long, like she thinks that’s how she can get into our corner, by scowling. But Mother is the best at scowling, so Cat who never leaves is just stupid.

“You have to tell me. I’m your best friend,” she begs “If it’s a loner, or a rogue—”

“If you want clan gossip, go somewhere else. I’m sure you can find some giggling she-cat to give you the latest scoop on whom exactly I am sleeping with. Who is it this week?” snarl, Mother is scary.

“Gingerclaw, please, stop it!”

“Then leave me alone. Go. Away.”

Cat who never leaves tries to scowl but she’s too stupid to handle it. “I’m not giving up.”

“I am.”

One day, Cat who never leaves, leaves. I’m so proud of Mother when she finally forces her to turn tail and run the other way. Mother is the strongest cat I know.

I learn how to crawl and I’m really fast at it. I can crawl from one side of the corner to the other and back again fastest. Other cat says I’m catching up. Catching up to who? Mother isn’t going anywhere, so neither am I.

Soon I try to walk around but I can only really hobble. I fall down a lot but it’s okay I’m allowed says Other Cat, and as long as I’m trying she is happy. She is also happy when I eat her icky plants. I need to get stronger, she tells me. I’d refuse them all but whenever I do fall down, Mother looks at me like exhausted is all over her. I’d do anything to make Mother happy and so I eat them, even though I HATE them. But afterward I do feel better. Not quite as cold and small and the noises all around me, they’re all smaller, like maybe close to my size. When I get bigger I’m going to be so big that I will bat them all away, with just one paw. Bam, bam, bam, away from me and Mother and our corner and we will be fine.

There are times when Mother leaves me. She’s here in the corner, but she goes away. Her eyes become blank and he bright light goes out, like clouds are covering her up. She stops lifting her head, she tells me go away. I know she really means, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m just extra exhausted today, but it still hurts. Other Cat tells me when she gets like this, she is taking a break from it all. That every cat needs a break once and a while. Even me? I want to ask. Can I take a break? Can I take a break with Mother, go where she goes, be with her always? Because being without Mother is like being without my eyes or ears or nose. I HATE break days more than I hate icky plants.

But still, I know it’s just for a little. Mother comes back after a day or two, the scowl back on, the energy the fire, there here everywhere back inside her. Break days are almost good because she gets ready to fight again, all those cats who look at her and me and make Mother tired. When it’s just me and Mother, without those cats, I know that Mother would never need a break day because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Mother loves me. It’s our secret, but it’s true.

Once Mother is on a break, and a cat who I’ve never met bursts in crazy and—ow, loud! I mewl angrily, shut up, Mother is on a break! But he doesn’t hear me or maybe I didn’t say it aloud (I don’t know how to say words out of my head yet), because he continues to shout, excitement pouring out of his loudness, making me jittery.

“Cedarclaw is leaving!”

Mother’s head lifts up from corner and she turns and stares at Cat who shouts, and then she’s lifting up her body. She demands to know more. He tells her shaky that half the clan is leaving with Cedarclaw. She says when. He says as soon as possible. Mother’s eyes begin to glow softly, dimly but as Cat who shouts leaves, I can tell, she’s back from her break. Cat who shouts fixed her!

I crawl toward her happily, mewling hello to Mother. But she turns away from me and looks at Other Cat, says “I’m going.”

What?!

“What?” Other Cat says. Sometimes, Other Cat reads my mind but it’s okay, I let her.

“I’m going. This is just what I was looking for…a way out, finally. There is no way I’m passing this up,” Mother sounds so excited but why? I can’t even think about leaving. Leaving means no more corner and Other Cat, and lots more of everyone else, and Mother HATES everyone else.

“You must be kidding. You realize that the journey they are planning…it isn’t some two-day hike, we’re talking moons and moons of moving around. You can’t possibly do that with Sedgekit! He’s still so weak and fragile, sickly and clumsy—he doesn’t even talk, for Starclan’s sake!”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything and I haven’t for a long time until right now. Leaving…that’s all I want.”

Except, no, because Mother forgot about me. She cares about me, she must. I crawl toward her, hoping she will tell me so with her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter what you want, you have a kit. And your kit isn’t strong—“ Other Cat hisses mean.

“He can survive, I’ll be there with him—"

“No, Gingerclaw. He won’t. Sedgekit will die!”

Mother’s eyes go crazy and she hisses back, “SHUT UP . He’s right here!”

I reach her and try to put my paw on her big big paw but she jerks away, glaring down at me anger coming at me now. I squeal and pull back too. Mother’s really angry! I burst out crying, and Mother starts cursing and hissing and I cry more and hard. Mother hates me now, I know it. She doesn’t care. She wants to leave me and corner because she’s too tired here. But no, I love Mother and if Mother leaves THEN I will die, and not the other way around. Other Cat doesn’t know anything. She just plays with plants. I could do that.

“Look what you did! He understands what you’re saying, I told you!”

“Or maybe he’s upset because his own Mother is leaving him!”

“I’m not—look, I’ve made my decision and you. Will. Not. Stop. Me. There’s no way you can stop me. It’s done. We’re leaving.”

Mother turns to me now, and the crazy anger is almost gone from her eyes but it’s still in her and I know she hates me now. I want to apologize but it’s always stuck inside me too. I lower my ears and hope she just tells me to leave her alone like usual. Maybe it’s again break time. But instead she sighs, an extra heap of exhausted on her all over, walking toward me like she is walking through lots of water. Mother, I am so sorry. Please smile even just once.

“Sedgekit…listen. This may not be fair to you but I really need you to do this for me. We’re going to go away. Far from this place. From everyone judging and saying mean things. I need you to be strong, okay?” Mother pleads whispering. I stare at her. I’ll do anything for you.

At night, Mother and Other Cat argue more, making the night too noisy for me to sleep.

“This is crazy. I’m begging you now, Gingerclaw… beggingyou, to stop this before you regret it. Think of your son.”

“Everything I ever do now is for him. I’m tired of it. I’m doing this for me.”

“You do nothing for him! Never have and you probably never will. Sometimes…sometimes I think everyone is right and you don’t even love him.”

Other cat doesn’t know anything.








The sun is waking stretching all over the sky, purple and red and orange and pink, all my favorite colors mixed up beautiful. Mother looks just like it today, bouncing around and her fur is alive and her eyes are sunlight. She tells me to say goodbye to everyone, but I have no one to do that to. I am taking the only one with me who is in my heart…why say goodbye to anyone else? But Other Cat thinks she’s in my heart too and so she says goodbye to me. She says take care, Sedgekit, stay really strong, always eat good food and lots of it. Okay, I would tell her, if I cared about what she wanted. She gives me icky plants. She licks the top of my head and says she’s going to miss me lots.

All I think about is what she said last night. I’m glad it’s just me and Mother again.

Mother picks me up by the scruff of my neck and it’s time to go! Goodbye corner! I shout back to it in my head and it says goodbye to me too. Soon everything the same is gone again and it’s like I’m born a second time over. Blind again, in dark, so scared, but Mother is with me, and the sun is making the sky my favorite shade of red. We will find a new corner, just for us, in a place that is safe. I know it.

Days and days and days and days. Everything passes slowly and quickly and everything soon feels like it could be the same, but it never is because we’re always moving. Mother is beautiful of course but she is beautifuller out here more. Her break days are all gone. She never goes away and her eyes are big and she points “Look, a squirrel, Sedgekit. One day you’ll catch one… and one day I’ll catch one again too.” She sounds like she is dreaming awake. When mother dreams awake, it’s the best. Sometimes though, she’ll be very awake and likes to tell me what not to do. Don’t go near the thunderpath, dimwit, she says. Don’t jump into the river, numbskull, she says licking off water tickling me. Don’t eat things you don’t recognize, mousebrain. Mother has a lot of sweet nicknames for me. It’s cuz she loves me so much.

I bring her things too. We all do, all the kits. It’s because we’re learning pouncing—well I’m not I just watch because I’m not big yet though I’m gonna be the biggest one one day. But all the other kits, they pounce all over the place, giggling and pinning down butterflies and dragonflies. I watch one kit drag back this mouse and her mother goes CRAAAZY, yowling so loud it makes me hide behind Mother. I don’t want Mother to yowl at me like that even if it was a good yowl (Mother insists it was) so instead I just decide to bring her things that don’t get swallowed by cats, like ladybugs, rocks and crunchy leaves that are red like Mother. She throws them away and says not to bring her things she can’t keep, but really on the inside she likes them. It’s one of our many secrets.

Then one day, Mother says she is leaving me for tiny bit little short time so miniscule I won’t even notice she’s gone. She has dreaming awake eyes and voice and she says I’m going to hunt. I squeak a little, what am I gonna do? She tells me don’t worry, another queen is gonna watch me and I can play with other kits my own age for a change. That sounds boring, I want to tell her, because you're not doing it with me. Instead I lick her nose and make her sneeze and scowl so light and soft it's almost a smile.

Two kits come up to me and start bothering me poking me a lot and hissing in my ear and laughing ow so loudly. They keep sneering the same things over and over in my ear.

“So I hear you can’t talk,” says Stupid black and white tom. “You can’t talk at all. You’re too stupid.”

“Why don’t you talk, hmmmmm?” says Ugly brown she-cat. “You can’t make friends if you don’t talk. Just say hi. Say ‘hi, what’s your name, I’m Sedgekit. I’m stupid.’ See look, that wasn’t hard,” she laughs and laughs at me.

“He’s too good for us, Mudkit,” sneers Stupid black and white tom. “So’s his mother. No one likes her either.”

I bristle and hiss at them show my teeth off. They both gasp and giggle.

“He’s angry! Ooooooh, look at what I did,” Stupid black and whit tom pokes me again hard. “Mama’s boy! Mama’s boy! Hey Mama’s boy, call for Mommy. Tell her to come help you.”

“Mommy, Mommy, the kits are being meaaaan,” sings Ugly Brown she-cat. “She wouldn’t come even if you did call her.”

NO! Mother always comes.

“You’re right, Mudkit. She doesn’t care about you.”

Mother loves me!

“She doesn’t even LIKE you!”

“S-s-stop it!” the words come out of my mouth no longer in my head. “Stop it!” a whisper it has not enough of Mother’s courage. Mother where are you? Why did you leave me?

The kits gasp again, laughter gone at first. Maybe I won. But no I didn’t they start again, even harder now and they poke me again harder than ever, again and again and again. “Say it again! Beg us to stop. We swear we’ll stop if you say it!”

“Stop it!” I cry too loud for my own ears. It breaks part of me. I sniffle and wail and they keep jabbing me. Liars. “Mother! Mother, please—“

But Mother doesn’t come (the kits were right). Instead a pretty apprentice comes running toward me, her ears down. She chases the two kits away and I hide behind her leg. She tells me shh, it’s okay. But it’s not. Only when I see Mother’s face coming toward me—and oh she’s prettysopretty like the sun only better—that I relax. But mother’s face drops and when pretty apprentice tells her what happened, rage in her eyes and I know it’s all my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her later. “So sorry…”

“Sedgekit,” she’s near breaking point, the tired on her face so deep it swims in her eyes. “Don’t. Just…forget about it.”

Mother never goes out again. The break days are back all the time and I’m so sorry that I ever left the corner when it's beginning to seem like the world doesn't have a place for me in it at all.








“He’s seriously sick.”

The world is dark and blind again and I am spinning, spinning, bending, all the noise around me muffled, all the cold in my bones. Sick, everyone murmurs, dead by tomorrow, everyone says. And me—me I’m all alone. Mother is gone, close by enough so I can smell her but so far I know she is not really here at all. She is angry at me. I can feel it, her eyes burning into me and I only wish they would burn hot instead of cold. I’m so sick of the cold. It’s always been here all my life and I don’t understand why I can’t get away from it no matter how many times we move. If only I could sit on the sun and bake there, in all the amazing and warm and beauty.

There is no sun for me anymore though and there’s so much pain. It’s in my nose and I try to sneeze it out, but I end up coughing the sick out too, rattling up my insides and making them sore. They’re so sore they don’t want any food anymore. Sometimes, a cat that smells like Other Cat—like icky plants and mean things like lies—urges me to lick a little moss. It’s all so hard though. Too much effort. I’d rather stay in my head, no kittens there to attack me with jabs and shouts, no angry eyes or judgy looks or anything. This is my break day. Let me play with my colors. My greens like tall trees, my blues like skies, my oranges and reds like Mother. Oh I love her so much.

But she isn’t here with me. Always two or three crawls away, her scent lying on me thin and weak, abandoning me. No one likes me. The world doesn’t want me. I don’t belong here. Why am I trying so desperately to stay?

Whenever I do creak my eyes open to find Mother, all I find is night. There is always night now. The daytime has stopped coming around for me. The sun hides. The moon casts a glow on Mother’s face and makes her a ghost.

Nights and nights and nights of shivering. Hours and hours and hours of nothing. And then, in the darkestness, everything pours.

It rains. Beautiful, wonderful rain, crystal like stars, it calls my Mother to me, beckons her to my side once again. She crawls over me, covering my whole body and I’m stuffed in her warm fur as the rain plummets all around, pounding loudly and thickly and coldly. But I love it even if it’s everything I normally don’t love because finally Mother is with me again, loving me like I know she must, because that’s what Mothers do. She murmurs things to me, telling me things I can’t hear because I’m spinning again, out of this world and into the next, and then all the way back again. When I manage to come back, I open my eyes a little and can see the gray world stretched out before me, rain still roaring on Mother’s matted fur. I hope it doesn’t wash all her color away. She’s so beautiful when she’s full of her color. Thank you rain, for bringing my mother back to me I whisper to it in my head but it hears I know it does because it rumbles in response like it’s hungry and then pounds harder.

“Are you going to die?”

I hear it this time. This question, Mother whispers to me. I remember back to our wonderful corner that I miss so much, Other Cat, and her telling Mother that I would die. I know now what it means now, because that is what elderly she-cat with the stripes did right before she gave me her sick. Her eyes closed, she said “wake me up for sun-high” and then she never did wake up again. I figure, yes, I will die, just like elderly she-cat with the stripes, because that’s what she did and that’s what Other Cat says and that’s what everyone says. But I don’t tell Mother this. She would be upset and all I want for her is to be happy. Just one smile for me, Mother. Please?

“You can’t…because everyone says you’re going to and I promised... Sedgekit. Don’t prove them right. Don’t prove me wrong.”

Sometimes it’s okay to be wrong though, I think. It’s okay if you’re wrong as long as you learn how to be right next time.

“You’re almost three moons. Just make it there and you’ll be fine.”

Three moons, really? I’ve lived so much! Three whole big massive white moons, and soon I’ll be big too one day like the moon, just watch.

“Leaf-bare will be over soon too. You haven’t even seen green-leaf, you silly cat, you can’t leave before green-leaf. It’s my favorite time of year, and the two-legs call it Spring….Sedge…Sedge, breathe! Breathe, honey, you need to breathe—“

One big full breath, for Mother. I love you so much, I’d do anything for you.

Mother talks to me all night. She tells me of Spring, green leaves and grass, tasty rabbits and beautiful flowers, especially the pink (which is her favorite, don’t tell anyone). She speaks of old memories, hunting with best friends, laughing and teasing and how she ruined everything, regrets everything and oh, how she hates herself more than anything (I love you more than anything). She talks about my father too. She tells me of pelt and how she can’t escape him because he’s always haunting her, looking at her through my eyes. Oh she hates me hates me hates me sometimes so much but I can’t die because then what would she do? And finally as the rain quiets down to nothing more than a hum, she whispers so brokenly my father’s name and I know everything there is to know. And it’s time for me to go.

“No,” Mother insists. She kisses me all over with her tongue.

It’s okay, Mother, I tell her in my head. The world didn’t make a corner for me. And it’s okay.

Night is all over, the rain has stopped, leaving the world quiet. I breathe weakly, watching out of the cracks of my eyes, as the sun rises up red orange purple and pink. Beautiful. It makes me not want to close my eyes again. And so I force them open with all the strength in me, burning the sun into my mind so bright it’s everywhere, wonderful colors and warmth exploding in front of me.

Mother whispers softly.

The sun grows bigger and bigger. One day, I’ll be big enough to bat it straight out of the sky. Just watch.

i love you